


And the Next

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: ronon_love, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-16
Updated: 2008-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second morning at her father's farm, Jennifer wakes, turns over to find Ronon's reassuring bulk to burrow into, and discovers nothing but rumpled sheets and a half-squashed pillow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Next

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amathela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amathela/gifts).



The second morning at her father's farm, Jennifer wakes, turns over to find Ronon's reassuring bulk to burrow into, and discovers nothing but rumpled sheets and a half-squashed pillow. She squints at the alarm clock – 8.30am; early enough that she doesn't feel like too much of a lay-a-bed; late enough that her father will be checking the back forty by now. It's the perfect moment to steal time from the press of the coming day, to scatter kisses across Ronon's shoulder and trade touches below the weight of her great-grandmother's quilts. But Ronon, it seems, has had other ideas, and lying still, listening carefully, she hears nothing to indicate he's still in the house – no clank of pipes from the bathroom, no chink of breakfast dishes a solid floor below. Sighing, she throws back the covers, pads to the window and squints toward the orchard, to the debutante green of the trees' first leaves and the ground stained dark between patches of clover. Seeing nothing out there between trunks and boughs she crosses the room, looks out toward the pasture instead, to the dusty spring grasses and the light brown cows.

Which is where she sees Ronon, arms folded, posture rigid, staring down a placid Jersey who's chewing cud and no doubt blinking balefully at Ronon's dreads.

"Oh, Lord," Jennifer murmurs helplessly, and reaches for her jeans.

She makes enough noise in her trek across the yard to alert a hundred old, mostly-deaf, blind and incapacitated Wisconsinites to her presence, but Ronon doesn't blink, doesn't glance in her direction, just flares his nostrils at the cow and blows air forcefully through his nose. Mirabel – the Jersey – flicks her right ear back as if warding off flies, chews her breakfast unfazed, and indulges in a little nasal huffing of her own.

"Uh – Ronon?" Jennifer ventures, jamming her hands into her pockets.

He jerks his chin at the cow. "These things."

"The cows?"

"I don't like 'em."

Jennifer blinks for a second then shifts a little closer. "Yeah?"

"They stare."

"Well." She chews on her bottom lip, trying to imagine how Mirabel looks through Satedan eyes. "They don't have much else to do. Eat grass. Get milked. Stare."

"Which parts are poisonous?"

"Poisonous?"

Ronon flicks a finger toward the pasture but otherwise remains impassive. "On Ashna they have creatures like this. Cut 'em open. Use their blood as poison." He finally turns his head. "On arrowheads."

Jennifer raises both eyebrows. "Does it . . . kill people? The poison?"

Ronon looks back toward the cow. "It's a quick way to go."

"Right." Jennifer makes a mental note to request another biochemist from the SGC and put them to work on antidote research. "Well. Mirabel – "

Ronon turns his head, eyebrow raised.

"It's her name," Jennifer says firmly so as not to be distracted by the flex of Ronon's upper arms beneath the stretched-tight fabric of his t-shirt. "Dad likes typical cow-names for his cows and – " She shakes her head. "Anyway. Mirabel just produces milk."

"I don't like her," Ronon says, apparently unconvinced by all of this.

"She's hardly a threat!" Jennifer says, exasperated at last. "I mean, look at her. She's dumb as a rock. She can run if she's spooked, but she's hardly a predator. She doesn't even have teeth in the front up top – just a big scary gumline." She waggles her fingers to suggest her mock horror.

"Her feet. Sharp," Ronon says.

"So don't get too close or scare her or, you know, kneel down with your face against her hoof and you'll be fine."

Ronon's mouth twitches. "She could fall on someone. She's heavy."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Jennifer manages, vowels stretched like her patience. "Ronon Dex, you were a Runner, you are responsible for shooting down more Wraith than I can count, you willingly walk into stupid, dangerous situations, and you . . . "

He turns to look at her, smiling. "Hmm?"

Jennifer pauses, feels a frown working gently at her forehead. "You – "

Ronon blinks, looking innocent, although the lines beside his eyes are beginning to crinkle.

Jennifer gapes. "Are you playing with me?" she asks.

"Maybe," he says wickedly, flashing her a grin and grabbing her by the waist. "Maybe." He kisses her neck and slides a hand underneath her shirt, aiming unerringly for the spot where she's most ticklish.

"RONON!" she shrieks, wriggling and laughing. "You big sneak!"

He blows a raspberry against her shoulder – an Earth-tease she will forever regret showing him – and laughs into her hair. "Scared of cows," he laughs, and she can feel his mirth rumbling up from his stomach, a vibration against her back.

"Insufferable!" she says, laughing too, beating on his arms with her hands, her hair coming loose from its ponytail, stray strands falling into her face. He tickles her again and she hoots helplessly, bending her knees and ducking under his arms, wriggling free and running up toward the farmhouse. "You're a great teasing lump!" she calls over her shoulder, and she's no idea why she's running, he can catch her without breaking a sweat, but there's something light and joyful bubbling in her veins, glee running clean and strong where fear's had too hard a hold back in Pegasus, and she grins to feel his hand around her wrist as she gets to the barn, to have him spin her around and press her back against the rough, red-painted wood. He's smiling – looks younger than she's ever seen him, towering over her, framed by wisps of cloud and the blue of a Wraith-less sky – and when he kisses her she stands on her toes, winds her fingers in the sleeves of his t-shirt and parts her lips to let him in, sighs unsteadily at the sweet, slow touch of his tongue. He's carefree here, in this tiny corner of Earth she can lay claim to – she can feel it in the sway of his body into hers, the confident sweep of his hand down her back; smell it in the grass seed and pollen that cling to his arms; hear it in the contented hitch of his breath. They may have responsibilities a galaxy away, but here they've the freedom to stand still without breaking, and Jennifer can't help but grin when the kiss breaks, to reach up and touch the end of one of Ronon's dreads. "If you tell Sheppard about this, I swear . . . " she threatens.

He chuckles again, the sound deep and reassuring. "Our secret," he promises, ducking to pull her snug against his body, arms wrapped warm around her, heart beating steadily beneath her ear. It's a stolen moment, happy and quiet, right up until the moment he starts to laugh again and says, " _cows_ . . ." and she's forced to tickle him until he buckles and falls, sprawls on the ground, helpless beneath her, chuckling as she tilts her chin and promises she'll save him from the cows, in this galaxy and the next.

  
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